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Materials and Design 30 (2009) 674678

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Materials and Design


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Rapid solidication of M2 high-speed steel by laser melting


K.Y. Benyounis a,*, O.M. Fakron b, J.H. Abboud b
a
b

Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Garyounis University, P.O. Box 1308, Benghazi, Libya
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Garyounis University, P.O. Box 130, Benghazi, Libya

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 3 December 2007
Accepted 14 May 2008
Available online 23 May 2008
Keywords:
Laser melting
HSS
Rapid solidication
X-ray
Microstructure

a b s t r a c t
The effects of laser surface melting and rapid solidication on the microstructure of M2 high-speed steel
(HSS) have been investigated. A solid state pulse Nd-YAG laser of wavelength 1.06 lm, maximum power
of 100 W, beam diameter 1 mm, and pulse duration of 0.8 and 2.5 ms. Optical, scanning electron
microscopy, and X-ray diffraction techniques were used to evaluate the microstructure and identify
the phases. Results show that laser surface melting has led to a complete dissolution of the carbides
and re-solidication of cellular/dendritic structure of a very ne scale surrounded by a continuous interdendritic (or intercellular) network of carbides eutectic. The phases appeared were mainly d ferrite and
M6C and small amount of austenite c. Laser surface melting leads to a renement of the microstructure
and altering the morphology and the distribution of the phases. The microhardness of this material was
not increased after laser melting.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
High-speed steels are group of materials, which upon heat
treatment, exhibit high strength, hardness and wear resistance
[1]. The as cast microstructure of this steel contain relatively high
proportion of carbides which arise from the initial casting process;
these carbides are coarse, heterogeneously distributed and are difcult to break down by conventional heat treatment technique. For
this reason conventional high-speed steel undergo hot working to
break up the network of carbides produced in the as cast structure.
However, even after hot working the distribution does not become
uniform and the carbides are arranged in stringer [1].
The application of laser melting and rapid solidication of surface layers permits to obtain structures and properties of practical
interest. This technology allows supplying an enormous density of
energy precisely to the treated surface during a very short time [2
11]. Since the melting occurs only at the surface, large temperature
gradients exist across the boundary between the melted surface region and underlying solid substrate, which results in rapid self
quenching and re-solidication depending on the processing
parameters used, laser beam melting results cooling rates of between 103 and 106 K s 1 through the solidication range. This produces a unique microstructure and the possibility of enhanced
solid solubility arising from the rapid solidication. This technique
is applied on different ferrous and nonferrous materials including
alloy steels [4], tool steels [58], cast irons [910], aluminum alloys

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: kybenyounis@yahoo.com (K.Y. Benyounis), jhabboud@yahoo.
com (J.H. Abboud).
0261-3069/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2008.05.030

[11], titanium alloys [12] and a signicant improvement in hardness, corrosion, wear, and oxidation has been reported.
The present work includes the effect of laser melting and rapid
solidication on the microstructure of the M2 high-speed steel
using Nd-YAG solid state laser.
2. Experimental technique
Commercial M2 high-speed steel plate of thickness 3 mm and
composition 6.1%W, 4.9%Mo, 3.5%Cr, 1%V and 0.9%C has been used.
The plate was cut into several equals pieces of 20 mm 
20 mm  3 mm. Before laser treatment, the sample surfaces were
mechanically ground, polished, cleaned and etched with nital to
decrease the beam reectivity. The Nd-YAG laser is operated in
pulse mode at frequencies 20 and 50 Hz. The maximum power of
the laser is 100 Watt but the experiment was carried out at powers
30, 40 and 60 W. The beam diameter was 0.5 mm. Three specimen speeds were used 0.5, 1 and 2 mm/s. Also two pulse durations
were selected 0.8 and 2.5 ms. Argon shielding gas was used during
laser melting to avoid oxidation and undesirable contamination.
Microstructure observations were carried out on cross-sectioned using optical and scanning electron microscopy SEM of type
LEO. Optical microscopy is used to see the whole melt zone at lower magnication while SEM analyses was used to reveal the microstructural details at high magnication employing secondary
electron image. X-ray diffraction (XRD) with a diffractometer using
chromium radiation and a vanadium lter has been used for
phases identication. Microhardness tests were carried out using
Vickers equipment with applied load of 100 gm on polished
sample.

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K.Y. Benyounis et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 674678

3. Results and discussions


3.1. Shape, morphology, and dimensions of laser melted zones
In the present investigation, smooth, at, and shinny surface
with silver color are observed in the surface of all the laser-processed specimens. The morphology of the top surface of the
LMZ is characterized by combination of ne crystal and ripples
in the radial direction. These ripples indicate the contours of the
solidication fronts. It is reported that surface tension gradients
are setup by temperature gradient driven uid ow [2]. A number
of cracks were observed and mostly transverse to the traverse
direction.
Table 1 illustrates the results of measuring the depth, the width,
surface roughness (R max), the depth to which the heat affected
zone is extending, and average microhardness of all laser melted
zones. All these measurements were performed done on transverse
section perpendicular to the laser track accept roughness values

were measured on the surface plane parallel to the laser scanning


direction with out any polishing.
Experimental results showed that for a given pulse duration and
power, the melted depth decrease when scanning speed increased
provided that the plasma which formed above the substrate should
be removed specially at the slowest speed. Also for a given scanning speed and pulse duration, the melted depth increases with
increasing power. Deep melted zone with a keyhole shape is obtained at relatively high power and long pulse duration. Increasing
pulse duration leads to a signicant increase in the melted depth
while the width remains unchanged. Roughness measurements
of all the processed samples showed a peak to valley height (R
max) values ranged between 2.52 and 5.76 lm compared to
10 lm of the as received material. The microhardness of the laser
melted zone was measured in different locations and the average
value is illustrated in Table 1 above. Generally the microhardness
of the melted zone is slightly lower than the substrate while the
heat affected zone is higher.

Table 1
Dimensions, roughness, average hardness of LMZ of M2 H.S.S at different conditions
Specimen
no.

Laser power
(W)

Pulse duration
(ms)

Scanning speed
(mm/s)

Melted depth
(mm)

Melted width
(mm)

Heat affected zone


(mm)

Roughness R max
(lm)

Average hardness
(HV)

2-V1
2-V2
6-V1
6-V2
6-V3
8-V1
8-V2
8-V3
9-V3

30
30
40
40
40
50
50
50
50

0.8
0.8
0.8
0.8
0.8
0.8
0.8
0.8
2.5

0.5
2
0.5
1
2
0.5
1
2
0.5

0.17
0.14
0.16
0.13
0.11
0.177
0.15
0.13
0.44

0.61
0.61
0.62
0.62
0.58
0.61
0.60
0.61
0.55

0.05
0.05
0.04
0.05
0.04
0.045
0.04
0.04
0.02

5.76
3.19
5.17
3.10
2.71
4.85
2.95
2.52
4.75

430
440
425
435
440
423
440
430
400

Fig. 1. (a) Optical micrograph shows the laser melted zone (30 W, 0.8 ms, and 1 mm/s), (b) SEM micrograph shows the structure of the interface, (c) SEM micrograph shows
the structure of the melted zone at high magnication, (d) SEM micrograph shows the structure at interface at high magnication and (e) SEM micrograph shows the
unaffected zone.

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K.Y. Benyounis et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 674678

3.2. Microstructure and X-ray diffraction


The microstructure of the as-received M2 high-speed steel consists of carbides of various sizes and morphologies in a matrix of a
ferrite. X-ray diffraction conrms that most of the carbides are M6C
where M is (Fe, W, Mo, and Cr); the other peaks were indexed as
bcc-iron.
Laser surface melting of this materials leads to a drastic change
in the microstructure. Fig. 1a shows a cross-section of the laser
melted zone processed at 30 W power, 1 mm/s traverse speed,
and 0.8 ms pulse duration. The maximum melted depth and width
are 0.13 mm and 0.62 mm, respectively. Apparently, most of the
carbides were dissolved and the structure is very ne. The analysis
of the structure by SEM shows that the melted zone consist a cellular/dendritic structure of ne scale (Figs. 1b and c) and some of
the undissolve carbides. The interface (i.e. crystallization front)
consists of a continuous network of carbides (Fig. 1d). The heat affected zone is very small. The unaffected zone (Fig. 1e) shows carbide of various sizes and shapes distributed homogeneously in
ferrite matrix.
The size or the intercellular spacing in the melted zone ranged
between 1 and 2 lm, which indicates a signicant amount of under-cooling has achieved before solidication. The regions between
the cells (i.e. the intercellular regions) are unresolved by the SEM
even at high magnication.
Fig. 2 a showed another cross-section of laser melted zone using
a higher power 50 W and longer pulse duration 2.5 ms. The melted
depth is 0.4 mm, which is three times deeper than the previous
specimen .In this sample, the high power used and the longer pulse

duration implies lower cooling rates as compared to the sample in


Fig. 1 which was processed at low power and short pulse duration.
Microstructural examination of the melted zone by the SEM (Fig.
2be) showed a combination of a cellular and dendritic structure.
The lower and the central part show cellular/dendritic structure
(cell size or dendrite arm spacing are 23 lm) while the upper part
is cellular (cell size is less than 0.5 lm). The intercellular or interdendritic regions are thicker than that observed in the previous
specimen.
The solidication structure of the melted zone in Figs. 1 and 2
depends upon the degree of constitutional supercooling. The rapid
kinetics within the laser melt leads to variation in the temperature
at various locations due to existence of different phases such as
M6C and bcc iron. Consequently, such variations in temperature results in variation in degree of constitutional supercooling leading
to a complex solidication structure in both the interfacial region
and laser melted zone. This phenomenon is evident from Fig. 2 c
and d with the presence of different size and morphology of dendritic/cellular zone above the interface. Fig. 2c shows coarse cellular/dendritic zone at the interface becoming ner on going further
into the upper surface. This could be attributed to the increasing
cooling rates on going away from the interface toward the surface
of the melted zone. A higher cooling rate suggest renement of
microstructure such as cellular to dendrites which could be further
rened into equiaxed dendrites.
Many researchers have studied the relation between cell/dendrite spacing or cell sizes and cooling rate for different materials].
Morris et al. [8] have published a relation between cooling rate eav
and cell size D (lm) for tool steel as follow D = 59 eav0:34 . From this

Fig. 2. (a) Optical micrograph shows laser melted zone LMZ of M2 high-speed steel processed at 50 W laser power, 2.5 ms pulse duration, and 0.5 mm/s specimen speed, (b)
SEM micrograph shows the microstructure of LMZ and HAZ, (c) SEM micrograph taken from the lower part of LMZ, (d) SEM micrograph taken from the central part of LMZ and
(e) SEM micrograph taken from the upper part of LMZ.

K.Y. Benyounis et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 674678

formula, with D = 1.52 lm measured from the micrograph of the


specimen processed at 30 W and 0.8 ms, the average cooling rate is
estimated to be 4  104 K/s. This value is comparable to those obtained by atomization and melt spinning [7].
In order to identify the phases in the melted zone by X-ray diffraction, the surface of the material is scanned by several overlapping treatment covering a surface area of 5 mm  5 mm. The laser
parameters were 50 W laser power, 1 mm/s specimen speed and
0.8 ms pulse duration. Fig. 3a shows X-ray diffraction taken from
the surface of the untreated sample. Most of the peaks were indexed as M6C and bcc ferrite by comparing them with the stan-

677

dard. X-ray diffraction pattern taking from the surface of the


melted zone after removing around 100 lm by grinding is shown
in Fig. 3b. Most of the peaks also correspond to M6C and a few of
them were indexed as bcc iron. There was a reduction in the intensity and the number of the peaks of the phase M6C compared to
those observed in the untreated specimen. The lattice parameters
of the bcc iron calculated from the [1 1 0] peak, which is the strongest peak, is 2.8887 A. This is slightly bigger than bcc pure iron,
which is 2.866 A [13]]. Another X-ray diffraction pattern taken
after removing 200 lm from the surface showed in addition to
the ferrite and M6C peaks some extra peaks indexed as fcc iron
(Fig. 3c). This result indicates the upper part of the laser melt zone
consists of bcc ferrite and M6C while the central part showed bcc
and fcc iron and M6C. Although X-ray diffraction analysis detects
only M6C, other carbides may escape detection by the X-ray and
could be delineated by the M6C.
3.3. Microhardness
The microhardness of the laser melted zone is relatively lower
than the substrate. This may be explaining by looking at the microstructure which show that most of the carbides segregated in the
interdendritic regions while primary dendrite has no carbides. In
high carbon and alloyed steels, it is known that maximum hardness
can be obtained when martensite is formed. This phase is very hard
and formed from the austenite under the condition of a high cooling
rate. Several investigators [4] have reported that laser melting of
high carbon steel produced less hardness than conventional solid
state treatment. This is because, the rapid solidication melting
leads to depress the Ms temperature (martensite start) below room
temperature and as a consequence to that, large proportion of the
soft austenite retain at room temperature. In the present work
the low level of hardness of the melted zone is due to the not formation of martensite. There are two reasons affecting the martensite
formation in this work. First, the presence of large proportion of
beta stabilizing elements such as tungsten, molybdenum, and chromium which tend to crystallize bcc iron as primary dendrite phase.
This phase has a lower solubility of carbon and this leads to segregate the carbon in interdendritic region as carbides. Second, the
high cooling rate affect the extent to which the peritectic reaction
(L + d ? c + carbide) can be proceed [7]. This will leads to decrease
the proportion of the austenite which will transform to martensite.
The present results showed that the morphology of the microstructure of laser melted M2 high-speed steel is dendritic, cellular,
or a mixture of both. The fraction of cellular morphology being
signicant only in the small melted depth i.e. those solidied at
higher cooling rates. However the cooling rates obtained is not
sufciently high to allow diffusionless solidication owing to
the large freezing range of those steel and to the substrate, which
act as potential heterogeneous nucleation sites for solidication.
It has been reported that this mode of solidication remains as
a distinctive characteristic of the microstructure, even for cooling
rates as high as 106 K/s since short range segregation still takes
place [7].

4. Conclusions

Fig. 3. (a) X-ray diffraction pattern taken from the surface of M2 high-speed steel
before laser melting, (b) X-ray diffraction pattern taken from the surface of laser
melted M2 high-speed steel and (c) X-ray diffraction pattern taken 0.2 mm below
the surface of laser melted M2 high-speed steel.

1. Laser surface melting of M2 high-speed steel by a pulse Nd


YAG laser using low power (30 W) and short pulse duration
(0.8 ms) can produced zones of smooth, surface prole and ne
cellular structure. Relatively higher power (50 W) and longer
pulse duration (2.5 ms) produced deep melted zone of structure
consisted of cellular and dendritic; these cells or the dendrites
regions were surrounded by a network of eutectic carbides.

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K.Y. Benyounis et al. / Materials and Design 30 (2009) 674678

2. The microstructure of the melted zone is very ne; the scale of


the microstructure in all the processed samples ranged between
0.5 and 2.5 lm and the cooling rates estimated to be in the
range of 104105 K s 1.
3. The bottom of the melted zone showed bright zone consisting
of a continuous network of carbides.
4. The structure of melted zone consists of bcc iron and M6C in the
upper part of the melted zone and bcc iron ferrite, M6C, and fcc
iron in the central part.
5. The microhardness of the tool steel used is not signicantly
increased after laser melting.

Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments are made to Dr. Osama Burshan in Libyan
Petroleum Institute in Tripoli (LPI) www.lpilibya.org for his help
in the SEM sessions and to the industrial research center in Tripoli
for the use of X-ray diffraction.
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